Is it the JW's or the God of the bible you no longer believe?
by reniaa 407 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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OnTheWayOut
I'll be honest I didn't want to get to scriptural because I did want this thread to be more as an enquiry on the difference of loss of faith in an organisation or the source aka bible
I think the above is a fair enough statement. Some will argue that the term "loss of faith" is inappropriate
because you automatically assume that must have happened. Some did not have a loss but rather grew
a larger faith beyond the lies, but otherwise, I get where you are going. "Was it the JW's you stopped
believing, or perhaps it was the Bible, as your thread title asks?"But notice the way your initial thread attacks former JW's belief systems, putting them in a position to
defend against such an attack or attack back:I have a question for the Ex-Jw's on this forum after months of reading the forum....
Many say how good it is to be free of the oppressiveness of the JW's that they can now enjoy the freedom to... have sex, celebrate christmas, gamble, embrace politics etc
There are still biblical scriptures and principles in place that if you still followed the bible would mean you avoid these things and yet these are now embraced as one of the perks of no longer being a JW so in my confusion I ask.... if these are what you want, isn't it more correct to say you no longer follow the bible as apposed to just the JW's?
Many former JW's, according to you, are enjoying having sex, celebrating Christmas, gambling, and
embracing politics- things you state are to be avoided if a person were following Bible principles.
See how you fit your JW mindset into the topic. People are explaining how these or other things
are not automatically against Bible principles. If anything with pagan roots is against Bible principles,
then ANYTHING is against Bible principles. It is only proper for responders on your thread to
redefine Bible principles in their own terms.What you are free to do, as everyone else is free to do, is define how YOU apply the Bible in your life.
You are not free to say that others are violating Bible principles unless you stick to the Bible and
demonstrate your point and tackle every exception to your verses that people come up with. That's
an impossible task that JW's have taken on, and others see it as wrong.There is no scripture that clearly says exactly how, in every circumstance, you should avoid such
things as having sex, celebrating Christmas, gambling, and embracing politics. It depends on how
you look at it.Here's one point of view on each issue:
Sex- In the OT, people were having sex. It was okay to have many wives, concubines. It was okay
to have sex with people you were not married to. After the establishment of the Ten Commandments,
it appears that the Jews were not to have sex before marriage. However, Christ ended the law. His
focus on sex seemed to be against adultery. He also showed that it was impossible to fully honor your
marriage unless you avoided sexual lust in your heart.If you want to say that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom, I will say the Bible says that "that is what
you were." While I can find support for faithfulness in marriage, I can find principles that do not totally
support virginity before marriage. It depends on how you read them.Christmas- a holiday in pagan roots. The Bible doesn't say not to honor the son. Everything has pagan
roots.Gambling- no crystal clear scriptures say that it is wrong.
Politics- same.
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stillajwexelder
Is it the JW's or the God of the bible you no longer believe? Both - when I started to question - I went right back to basics - if JWs are wrong what about the basics - the bible itself.
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insearchoftruth
Interesting answer Stilla, my wife's flirtation with the JWs has made me not believe in the JWs in any way, shape or form, but it has also really caused a crisis in my belief in the Bible. I watch her take scripture out of context, blindly accept things written in WT material without question, in essence following the GB not Almighty God and not even bat an eye.
I hear her speak out against scientifically proven things because they do not agree with the Bible, but when I point out that there are many things in the Bible that are scientifically incorrect, she does not even want to read those sections.
From what I have seen, my wife thinks she believes in the Bible, and really does believe that ALL the writings of the JWs are in essence inspired.
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sacolton
Dawg wrote about his get together with some JW friends and they said, "We just want to believe it. Is that so bad?" That's the mind-set. Hey, I want to believe that Diet Coke will come out of the water fountain at work next week ... should I continue to believe it will?
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reniaa
hi amyfa
Your question was asked earlier in the post basically answered similar to what I say to you now, smoking, shooting, running around the streets painted blue screaming "Come on you reds" are also not in the bible should we do them too? Jews got the law, Christians got principles, we all have to use personal judgement on a lot of things as to whether they are against our consciences. in 99% of christian religions christmas is fine and a loved holiday in this the JWs are going against current opinion.
Sacolton, your not gonna make me google Christmas and pagan and put another list on, I already did once earlier in this thread and posted it /cry
Insearchoftruth
Not meaning to add another topic, but Luke 6, quoted above, is a story where a mosiac law was violated to save a life....where does that differ from getting a blood transfusion (I guess a transfusion of one of the major components, since most every other part of blood is allowed) to save a life?
I actually agree with you on this one, its one of the reasons i'm still only studying and researching because i think this principle is a sound one to apply to saving lifes with blood transfusions, for me I may still refuse but if i was responsible for anyone else i would accept for them using this principle and accept the consequences, Also i'm no hypocrite if as a parent i was sitting back hoping for a court order to allow my kids to have a transfusion than i would just go ahead and do it, if the hope is there i've already commited the sin in my heart so a bit pointless pretending otherwise.
But on saying all that the Jw's are not lying when they say there is a mortality rate with blood transfusions but that is getting less as we understand the proper uses of it more, I think most blood banks are now removing the white cells which are thought to be carriers of the undetectable illnesses from what i read from news items on google but nothing is cut and dried and blood transfusions are an extremely volitile subject more so than christmas but i'll post some non-witness current news info for you to judge by yourself. A better suggestion is to google for youselfs than take anyone word on such an important subject.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/24/medicalresearch.health
Many blood transfusions may increase risks, doctors warn
· UK study found dangers for heart surgery patients
· Fears over death rate and storage lead to US inquiry- Ian Sample, science correspondent
- The Guardian,
- Thursday April 24 2008
- Article history
More than half of blood transfusions may do more harm than good, with some patients facing a six-fold greater risk of dying following surgery because of transfusions, doctors warn today.
Fears over the safety of blood transfusions have prompted some physicians to recommend they are used only as a last resort, with hospitals urged to be more selective over which patients receive blood. According to a report in New Scientist today, the National Institutes of Health, the US government's largest medical funder, has launched a review into the safety of the procedure. Bruce Spiess, a cardiac anaesthetist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, America, told the magazine: "Probably 40%-60% of blood transfusions are not good for the patients."
While the risks of contracting life-threatening infections, such as HIV, from blood transfusions are well understood, doctors believe the danger posed by the blood itself is more serious.
Although they do not fully understand why blood transfusions are linked to higher death rates, they suspect that ageing blood that has been stored before being given to patients is less able to carry oxygen to vital organs and causes damage to the immune system.
Blood transfusions became a common procedure during the two world wars, when they were used to save critically-injured soldiers. They are now used routinely in heart surgery, hip replacement operations and cancer treatment. According to the National Blood Service, only 8% of donated blood is used in accident and emergency situations.
According to New Scientist, a recent flurry of studies highlighting the risks of blood transfusions has prompted the wide-ranging safety review. One study of almost 9,000 patients, led by cardiac surgeon Gavin Murphy at the Bristol Heart Institute, found that patients who had heart surgery between 1996 and 2003 were three times more likely to die a year after their operation if they had a blood transfusion. In the month after surgery they were six times more likely to die than patients who did not receive donated blood.
"There is virtually no high-quality study in surgery, or intensive care or acute care, outside of when you are bleeding to death, that shows that blood transfusion is beneficial, and many that show it is bad for you," he said. There are more than 30,000 cardiac operations in Britain each year, with around half involving blood transfusions.
The American review will attempt to find out why blood transfusions appear to be so harmful to many patients.
One theory is that chemicals in donated blood suppress the patient's immune system, making it harder to fight off infections. But doctors also know that within hours of being collected red blood cells stiffen up, making them less able to squeeze down narrow blood vessels and supply oxygen to vital organs.
A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who received blood that was more than two weeks old were almost 70% more likely to die within a year than patients who received fresher blood.
John Wallwork, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, said: "We are concerned about blood transfusions for a variety of reasons. We don't want to use blood unless we have to. In heart surgery around half receive blood transfusions, but often they are patients who are sicker or bleed significantly during the operation. It's always a case of balancing the risks."
Blood transfusions raise heart patients' infection and death risk -- especially women
New finding helps 'connect the dots' of a women-specific medical mystery
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Blood transfusions save the lives of millions of heart surgery patients and others each year. But a new study suggests that patients who receive transfusions during heart bypass surgery have a higher risk of developing potentially dangerous infections, and dying, after their operation.
In fact, this increased risk may help explain a longstanding medical mystery: why women bypass patients are more likely than men to die in the first few months after surgery. Women are more likely to receive blood during heart bypass operations, which are performed on more than 465,000 Americans each year.
The findings, from the Patient Safety Enhancement Program (PSEP) at the University of Michigan Health System, are based on data from 9,218 Michigan bypass patients. After adjusting for factors such as the urgency of the operation, those who received blood transfusions from donors were five times more likely to die within 100 days of their operation than those who did not.
The paper is published in the December issue of the American Heart Journal. It builds on a previous U-M analysis that found that a difference in infection rates accounted for the difference in death risk between men and women bypass patients.
The U-M team, with the help of Neil Blumberg, M.D., of the University of Rochester Medical Center, focused on blood transfusions as a contributing factor. Prior research has shown that recipients of stored donor blood have more post-surgical infections, and that women receive more transfusions because they tend to have lower hemoglobin concentrations.
This new study connects the dots. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to state that allogeneic transfusions may be the reason why women have a greater post-bypass surgery mortality risk than men," says author Mary A.M. Rogers, Ph.D., M.S., PSEP, research director and research assistant professor of internal medicine. Allogeneic is the term for blood from another person.
The authors strongly note that blood transfusions can be life-saving, and that the infections observed in this study are not likely due to contamination of the blood. Rather, they may be due to other factors, including the patient's immune response to substances such as white blood cells that are present in stored donor blood. These findings may help guide hospitals and blood banks in deciding whether to filter donated blood to reduce the levels of white blood cells. This practice is increasingly common, but not yet universal, in the United States.
The study is based on analysis of data from all Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older who had coronary artery bypass operations in Michigan in a single year.
The researchers performed statistical analyses that took into account the patients' blood transfusion status, their co-existing diseases, age, race, sex, and whether the bypass operation was done on an elective, urgent or emergency basis. They looked at infections and deaths that were reported during the 100 days after surgery.
In all, about 88 percent of women received an allogeneic blood transfusion during bypass surgery, compared with nearly 67 percent of men. When the researchers adjusted for other factors, women were 3.4 times as likely as men to receive blood. This gender difference was evident regardless of whether the operation was elective, urgent or emergency.
The odds of having an infection of any kind were about three times greater in patients who received allogeneic blood than in patients who did not. The more blood they received, the higher their infection risk. This "dose dependent" relationship strengthens the evidence that transfusions may be related to infections.
No single type of infection stood out as more common among blood recipients, which suggests a body-wide immune response issue rather than a problem, for example, at the site of the incision.
The analyses revealed that women were more likely to experience an infection than men after bypass surgery, which appeared to be due to the increased number of transfusions in women. This resulted in an increased mortality rate in women. Overall, 9 percent of women and 6 percent of the men died within 100 days of their operation.
For patients who had banked their own blood ahead of the operation and who received only their own blood, the infection risk was similar to that of patients who received no blood transfusions. Rogers notes that patients should ask their doctors regarding banking their own blood if possible, when scheduled for a bypass operation or other kind of surgery.
In addition, physicians are increasing their use of transfusion alternatives such as blood "expanders," blood substitutes and blood-conserving procedures during bypass surgeries.
The results also highlight the importance of the proper use of antibiotics and infection control practices in patients hospitalized for a surgical procedure, says Rogers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/uomh-btr121906.php
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insearchoftruth
But on saying all that the Jw's are not lying when they say there is a mortality rate with blood transfusions but that is getting less as we understand the proper uses of it more, I think most blood banks are now removing the white cells which are thought to be carriers of the undetectable illnesses from what i read from news items on google but nothing is cut and dried and blood transfusions are an extremely volitile subject more so than christmas but i'll post some non-witness current news info for you to judge by yourself. A better suggestion is to google for youselfs than take anyone word on such an important subject.
Thanks Reniaa, appreciate the information, yes there is a risk associated with a transfusion, but in the very high majority of cases, there is no other course of action other than providing blood that may save the persons life, and MANY more people have lived to see another day due to a transfusion than have died because of them. When the JWs flat out refused a transfusion, they could point to the scriptures as their justification, even though I do not agree with the conclusion that a transfusion is eating blood any more than an organ transplant is cannibalism (which in our lifetime was a belief of the WTS), but now the allowance of fractions which are taken from donated, stored blood sure takes any scriptural backing away. Using fractions means this blood was not "poured out on the ground".\
The authors strongly note that blood transfusions can be life-saving, and that the infections observed in this study are not likely due to contamination of the blood. Rather, they may be due to other factors, including the patient's immune response to substances such as white blood cells that are present in stored donor blood. These findings may help guide hospitals and blood banks in deciding whether to filter donated blood to reduce the levels of white blood cells. This practice is increasingly common, but not yet universal, in the United States.
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reniaa
Onthewayout
Many former JW's, according to you, are enjoying having sex, celebrating Christmas, gambling, and
embracing politics- things you state are to be avoided if a person were following Bible principles.
See how you fit your JW mindset into the topic. People are explaining how these or other things
are not automatically against Bible principles. If anything with pagan roots is against Bible principles,
then ANYTHING is against Bible principles. It is only proper for responders on your thread to
redefine Bible principles in their own terms.Your right my wording was too attacking and you are right to pick me up on it, I would say my mindset is bible with JW tones :) but in my defence on adiscussion thread it's inevitable that our responses are coloured by our personal viewpoints?
Here's one point of view on each issue:
Sex- In the OT, people were having sex. It was okay to have many wives, concubines. It was okay
to have sex with people you were not married to. After the establishment of the Ten Commandments,
it appears that the Jews were not to have sex before marriage. However, Christ ended the law. His
focus on sex seemed to be against adultery. He also showed that it was impossible to fully honor your
marriage unless you avoided sexual lust in your heart.If you want to say that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom, I will say the Bible says that "that is what
you were." While I can find support for faithfulness in marriage, I can find principles that do not totally
support virginity before marriage. It depends on how you read them.Christmas- a holiday in pagan roots. The Bible doesn't say not to honor the son. Everything has pagan
roots.Gambling- no crystal clear scriptures say that it is wrong.
hmm I think someone else said something along similar lines earlier that because we are no longer under jewish law we no longer have to abide by it so therefore we are free to basically do as we want, but is that correct? you say jesus focussed on adultery was you thinking of this scripture in mathew 15?
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"
13 He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. [e] If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
15 Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
16 "Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17 "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "
because while he does focus on adultery he also mentions sexual immorality how would you define that? the Jews he was saying it too would know it would include sex before marriage among other things?
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justhuman
It is the WT that I do not believe. Besides the Bible it is only one expression of God's apocalypse for mankind. The Bible does contain errors since it is written by humans.
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Amyfa
You can not say celebrating Christmas is the same as
"smoking, shooting, running around the streets painted blue screaming "Come on you reds"
But what you are saying by your silence is that it's not in the bible saying we can't celebrate Christmas, so its up to each person how they want to celebrate something so wonderful as the birth of Jesus, without Jesus there would be no christianity.
Another thing I have said to my friend is that if Mr Russell came back today he would have to start a new religion as he would not know the JW's. When he died Christmas, birthdays, smoking, the cross and a host of other things were what he preached.